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Comment by big_chungus | Hacker News Reader

The obvious issue is that these contracts are already in place. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the eu to add such a contractual provision (especially of this significance) arbitrarily; they may have to wait until the contracts are re-negotiated.

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What contractual position? It seems that any contractual term which is against the law would be null. I do not think that the law is (nor should be) subordinate to contract terms.

Was the contract against the law when the contract was signed? Others are saying the law was changed after the contract was agreed to.

Laws change all the time making contract clauses invalid, I don't think that's an issue.

Sometimes laws might explicitly grandfather previous arrangements or provide transition periods, but that's not a given.

In the case of GDPR, of course grandfathering would render the law moot, but it did take many years from the law passing to becoming effective.

To make an example which is relevant to our field, if a law is passed making non-compete invalid, would you expect it to only apply to new contracts?

Contracts are designed in such a way that they remain in place if any parts of them are voided by law but they don't take precedence over the law even if the law changes after the contract was signed.

If slavery were legal today and abolished tomorrow, you couldn't keep your slaves just because they were signed into indentured servitude before the law came into effect.

Why would it be difficult? Are you thinking of ex post facto doctrine? That really only applies to criminal penalties. A good, long-term contract should require that if some part of it is invalidated by changes to law (or a court finds that it violates existing law), then the parties can or must renegotiate that part but the rest of the contract survives, or alternatively that the entire contract becomes void if that's what the parties want. There really isn't a way to include a clause in a contract that says the parties are free to ignore changes in laws.

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